Much has been written about the impact of Iraq's first free elections in 35 years. Perhaps more insight can be gained by looking at a small part of the voting process through the eyes of the Marines who helped make it happen.
In September 2004, Yusufiyah was a town of lawlessness and terror. It was a stifling hot summer day and the wind blew casually, ruffling the leaves of the eucalyptus trees that line the large canal that cuts through the center of the town. We arrived in six Humvees to conduct a leaders' recon. Having recently arrived in Iraq, I wanted to give my platoon commanders and squad leaders a flavor for the major urban areas that comprised the battalion's area of operations. At the time we had no idea that Yusufiyah would be our home for five months.
We dismounted our vehicles in front of the schoolhouse that was to become our future home. Eighteen of us patrolled through the city center. The city was bustling. The lour streets that make up the market square were jammed, packed with storefronts and curbside stands. Everything was for sale. Live chickens roosted in pens. Skinned sheep hung from meat hooks. Grains were piled six feet high, and fish caught in the Euphrates swam la/ily in small ponds. Stereos, hardware, medicines, and a variety of other items were offered for sale amid the cacophony of merchants, shoppers, and loiterers.
We received a cold reception. The vibe behind the market's facade was one of fear. Several buildings were bullet-riddled, and an RPG had blown a hole in a nearby wall. Doors shut as we walked past homes. In the market, men stared blankly as we moved from storefront to storefront. Occasionally young men wearing cheap imitations of New Jersey tracksuit gangster attire would see us approach and make hasty retreats to black sedans and speed oft". We thought a firelight would erupt at any minute. The 45 minutes we spent in town that day was just long enough for the company commander I was replacing to show that this was not a place you wanted to go to drink a beer and watch the game.
Three weeks later. Company F was ordered to scize Yusufiyah to enforce security, deny insurgents the use of the road network, and establish an Iraqi security presence from which long-term stability could be attained. The town was a hotbed of insurgent planning and staging for attacks into Baghdad. The province was also the rear area for those fighting in Fallujah. Many of the leaders in that tight came from villages along the Euphrates River that ran through the zone of my company's responsibility.
The Ugly Undercurrent
It was only after we seized the town that we learned the truth about Yusufiyah and its notorious market. The Souq had been the scene of regular executions. People suspected of being spies or working with Americans and the interim government would he shot in the head and their bodies tossed in the market. Shia residents thought to he helping Americans could meet a nastier death-at least six heheadings had occurred in the market prior to our arrival. The terrorists were threatening to blow up an elementary school it Shia girls continued to attend classes.
It was obvious that the town's population was afraid of us. The initial week's battle between Company K and the insurgents only added to the town's battle scars. At the end of the week, at least five cars still smoldered with the dead enemy occupants either slumped in the seats or along the roadway. Jittery Marines, wary of car bombs, were quick to fire at an approaching vehicle. Constant enemy mortars and rockets harmed far more civilians than Marines.
Yet. slowly we pushed the enemy back. We patrolled farther into the countryside. Our aggressive counter Ores began to silence the accurate mortar and rocket attacks. The enemy killed and captured began to mount and the improvement in security was telling. We established checkpoints along the four major roads into town, further reducing the ternir threat. As the situation improved, the market reopened, schools reopened, and life began to approach normal. As time went on the residents began to trust our presence. They began to sense we were staying a while, and conditions continued to improve.
Nevertheless, people were wary of voting. They kept telling us that the "mujahideen would kill them if they voted." People seemed interested in the democratic process but did not want to sacrifice their safety or that of their families. All the while we continued to patrol, attack, and attempt to build rapport with the citizenry. At the beginning of January, we were told that elections would not he held in Yusufiyah or the surrounding countryside. The Baghdad government felt it was still too dangerous. The Marines were disappointed. We felt that elections would be a major milestone reflecting our successes. My company of 150 Marines had lost 5 dead and 18 wounded up to that point in our combat tour. Elections would be a testimony to our fallen Marines who gave all so others could hope.
Why We Fight
These men were not thinking about the Iraqi people or some noble cause when they died-I'm not that naïve. But. does it matter? Somewhere along the line we as Marines choose to put someone or something else in front of us. We believe some things are worth righting for. That part of us staxs in our heart, and it is win men continue to volunteer and serve. In the heat of battle, in that freeze-frame of time when adrenaline thrusts you forward. I promise we are not thinking about serving some common good. Beneath that driving force to survive and win, however, remains the idealistic notions of the kid who stood on the yellow footprints at a recruit depot buying into 229 years of shared values such as selflessness and higher purpose. That part of us was hoping for elections and hoping to leave Yusufivah in a better condition than when we arrived.
I was having tea with Sheik Sumar of the Anhari tribe explaining to him that the Ministry of the Interior hud decided to hold elections in the North Babil province. We were both excited. The sheik represented a predominantly Shia tribe that constituted approximately 30 percent of the town's population. The change of heart from the government was a direct result of the lobbying efforts of milliard charging battalion commander. lieutenant Colonel Mark Smith. He is a passionate man who can argue a point with the conviction of a Baptist preacher on Easter Sunday. His two-week efforts prompted officials to risk elections in what the media termed "the triangle of death." The sheik explained that he would inform his people about the elections, hut remained concerned about the security of the election sites and the safety of the people who might he targeted for kidnapping or murder for participating in the elections.
I told him. "If one man votes he may be killed and the terrorists will be victorious. If every man. votes no one will be killed and the terrorists will lose."
The preparations for the event had been ten clays in the making. On 28 January, the Friday before election day. I went along with "Blue." my interpreter, to the Shia and Sunni mosques in Yusufiyah. Blue unsuccessfully attempted to locate the imams of each mosque. We had arrived too early. With the permission of the mosque guard, however. Blue took off his hoots, entered the mosque, and announced the details of the election over the loudspeaker used to call the people to prayer. With the elections formally announced and civic leadership informed, the hard work of securing the polling sites remained. We hoped that the people trusted us to maintain the security needed for safe elections and that they saw the value in exercising their newly won right.
Marines from 1st platoon worked all night with the Iraqi Army and election officials. On the 29th. heavy equipment arrived to place barriers around the town to prevent car bombs from being driven into the two election sites. Strings of concertina wire, spanning hundreds of feet, were spread along roads to define search lanes and crowd control. Two large shipping containers full of election materials and the supplies needed to support election workers arrived at 1900.
At 2300, men and women clambered off Marine 7-ton trucks, some jumping the six feet from the truck bed into the anus of Marines who safely brought them to the ground. These 100 people were to be admired. They had volunteered to work polling centers as if they were from your local PTA chapter or the League of Women Voters. Men and women, mostly from Baghdad, weathered the trip to Mahmudiyah. and then to Yusufiyah on the trucks so they could make Iraq's first free election in more than 35 years a reality. We moved them into the two schoolhouses that were used as the polling sites, handed each a cot and some kosher/Muslim-friendly rations, and led them to classrooms that served as overnight billeting. Strangely some of them thought that it was okay to build fires to keep warm on a chilly night. They threw books and desks into a pile and started a fire. We put a quick stop to it before too much damage was done.
Election Day
Sunday morning, 30 January, brought dull skies and a chilly wind. Marines and Iraqis worked all night to prepare for the election. At 0700, the official time for polling stations to open, the streets were empty. We had shut down all traffic the day before so no vehicles were on the streets. We all wondered whut would happen. Would anyone show? When would the attacks we all expected begin? Had the enemy infiltrated the city?
The first signs of life begun at 0715 with a few people walking about, some warily approaching the polling sites. Their actions were akin to an animal approaching something it wants to eat or smell-approaching half way. then retreating back, getting closer on the next approach before again retreating. Finally, the first person approached our search zone. All people were searched prior to entering the school to ensure they were not suicide bombers. Once searched, they walked through a lane created by two rows of concertina wire. They then entered one of a number of classrooms that served as the polling locutions. Inside the room, cardboard partitions were set up where each person would bring their ballot and vote. The first man to do so walked out with pride, happy to be the first person to vote in Yusufiyah.
People began arriving in small groups of two or three. By 0830, 10 to 15 people at a time would approach. People were voting! We were psyched! Of course it was not without its own Iraqi flavor. The first of about 20 mortar attacks that day began to land at about 1030. Most were wildly inaccurate, some were not, with both the polling sites and our base being hit. Nevertheless, people continued to come.
A Conversation
"Inshallah" or "god willing" is far more than a saying, it's an attitude. It is an attitude that causes people to refuse to buck tyranny. It's an attitude that can make it so difficult to obtain information from the people about the terrorists that kill their countrymen. However, it is also an altitude of determined resignation; a fatalistic view that allows one to live in such a hostile country and survive in a land where so much has depended on the unexplainable. It allows people to walk through mortar fire, content with their fate. "I might vote today, or I will be killed by a mortar round." I have never seen people publicly grieve so little for the death of family members and so quick to accept and ask for a blood money payment for their loss.
Luckily, no one was killed at the polling sites on election day.
At about 1100 a woman and son approached the polling sites. As they neared the search area the woman and man started to get in an argument.
"No, you will not vote." the man said.
"Yes I will. I am allowed to vote."
"As my mother. I will not let you. You must go home. It is not appropriate."
"I want to vote."
The Iraqi soldiers manning the search zone saw this exchange. These men are neither the pillars of society nor are they of Patrick Henry's ilk to seek liberty or death. Nevertheless the mother-son conversation intrigued them. One soldier wearing camouflage pants, hoots, and a leather motorcycle jacket, acted.
"Hey you there, you cannot stop her from voting."
"Yes, I can. She is my mother." said the man.
The soldier approached the two. "She can vote if she wants to."
The man tried to push his mother away. The soldier gave the man an underhanded hull strike to the gut with his AK-47. which bent the man over in pain. The woman looked at her son, then at the soldier. She thought for a moment-no more than five seconds-and then walked past her son to the polling site.
Democracy practiced by a woman with the help of a soldier's butt stroke. Not our version of free and unlettered democracy but probably a step in the right direction in a country that has not known free elections in 35 years. By the end of the day more than 3,000 people voted in the city and 4,000 more voted around the provinee labeled the "triangle of death" and thought too dangerous to hold elections. We were happy with the turnout and the day.
Before election day, the city had reached a point where children would follow patrolling Marines asking lor candy or money. Adults would usually keep their distance. They would wave or say hello, but more out of courtesy than a desire for conversation. In the days alter the election, men and women approached patrols. "Thank you for staying." "Thank you for the security." "We heard you are leaving soon. Please don't go." "Thank you so much." "Please, come in for tea." "Lunch?" People throughout the city, Sunni and Shia, openly expressed their gratitude. Marines returned from patrols feeling they accomplished something.
So, we do fight for causes. At least that's part of the reason. We, as Marines, were happy that our hlood and sweat paid nil in Yusulnah. Even if for just a moment, people exercised what we consider a right. That right to vote and exercise a freedom to assemble in an environment free Imm intimidation or corruption in a country that has never known such opportunity was a worthwhile part of this fight. It does not take the pain away from the families of our lallen, but it guarantees they did not die in vain.
Major Mann served as company commander in Iraq from September 2004 until March 2005 with Company F, 2d Battalion, 24th Marines.